Cold Comfort
by Kyra4
Summary: It's cold in the woods tonight. Deadly cold. Will he reach her in time?
1. Chapter 1

Title: Cold Comfort

Based on: Sonnet XXI by Pablo Neruda (Translated from Spanish by Stephan Tapscott)

_If only love would spread its savour through me!__  
__--not to go one moment more without spring!__  
__What I sold into sorrow was only my hands,__  
__dearest: now leave me with your kisses._

_Shut out the month's light with your fragrance;__  
__close all doors with your hair.__  
__Only do not forget, if I wake up crying__  
__it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child_

_hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands,__  
__for your caresses like the wheat,__  
__the flashing rapture of shadow and energy._

_O my dearest, nothing but shadow there__  
__where you walk with me through your dream:__  
__you tell me when the light returns._

Rating: Teen

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Characters belong to the lovely JKR.

Summary: This fic was written as a gift during the latest round of the DMHG Fic Exchange. The request was for sadness, with Draco and Hermione together at the end.

Warning(s): Not DH compliant, so I suppose you'd call this AU. Contains some language, some angst, and character death is implied (but you get to draw your own conclusion on that.)

Author Note: This is a departure for me. I've never written anything in the first-person, _or_ the present tense before; but that is how this story presented itself to me. I hope it works! I'd like to thank Alex25 and SeanEmma4Evr both of whom have been enormously helpful in the inspiration / creation and beta-reading of this ficlet ( and both of whom, of course, are stellar writers here on FFN!) To the recipient: I pray I did justice to your request, and I hope you enjoy!

This fic contains three chapters, which will be posted over the course of three consecutive Fridays. R&R very much appreciated as always! :o)

_-_-_-_

I've dreamed this forest.

At the time I didn't understand it, of course, but I've dreamed this forest.

The dreams were… abstract. More form than substance. They were light and shadow – _moving_ shadows and only now, in retrospect, do I realize how strongly they suggested the stark branches of winter trees, buffeted by wind.

I _was _searching, though. In my dreams. Searching through that abstract, intangible forest of the night. That much was accurate.

That much I got right.

In the dreams, I never found what I was searching for. I would wake in my solitary bed, my hands groping frantically in the dark, without ever understanding why, or for whom, I was reaching.

I know now.

I know exactly who I am looking for and I know – panic rising in me like bile – that time is short.

The snow is coming. It's as if I'm bringing it with me; trailing it in my wake.

I can see my breath in the air. It's so cold here. And so quiet. There are no sounds at all, except for the sounds I make in passing; dry leaves and fragile twigs crunching beneath my booted feet.

Even these are muffled.

It is easy to believe I'm the only living thing for miles… easy, but false.

Because she's here. She's so close that I can almost touch her. I pray to every saint I've ever heard of to guide me now.

The cold has become my enemy.

I never used to mind it, the cold. Growing up, winter was always my favorite season. The snow – quiet, gentle, _implacable_ – blanketing all imperfections in the landscape. Equalizing. Snow is purity. And I had been taught to _seek_ purity. To value it above all else.

But now, I am racing the cold. Racing the snow. Because if she's out here…

No, there's no if. She _is_ out here, quite possibly hurt or incapacitated, and if I don't reach her quickly it will be this _cold_ that steals the breath from her body, as inexorably and mercilessly as any Unforgivable Curse ever cast.

Unless she's already _been_ dispatched by an Unforgivable.

My insides twist and clench at the thought. But no… I think I would _know _if that had happened. I think I would sense it somehow.

That's what I tell myself, at least.

And I stumble on.

_-_-_-_

_Let her be all right. Let her be all right._

This one thought is pounding ceaselessly in my head, keeping time with my footfalls, the beating of my heart.

Let her be all right.

I _need_ her to be all right. And that's what this is about, really. Not about her so much as it's about me.

I'm a selfish man.

Hell, I can own it.

I'm a selfish man and if she's not all right it will destroy _me_.

And so I need her to be all right. It's just that simple, really.

And I'm still convinced she is alive out here; that I would feel, that I would _know_, if she were otherwise. But _alive_ does not necessarily equal _okay_. If five years of constant warfare have taught me anything, they've taught me that. They've taught me that in ways I'll _never_ forget.

Alive and Okay… they can be _oceans_ apart.

Just ask my mother if you don't believe me. She won't answer you in words, of course; all she does these days is stare and twitch and drool.

But that's answer enough right there. Isn't it?

Fresh panic sets in. I find myself drawing breath to shout her name. I stomp on the impulse. It's probably the worst thing I can do.

She and I may not be the only ones out here, in this preternaturally quiet forest. If there are others, I don't want to alert them to my presence… or to hers.

Assuming, of course, that she hasn't already been discovered and –

_Stop it. Stop it, just stop it, that doesn't help. Panicking DOESN'T HELP._


	2. Chapter 2

There was an intercepted message, you see.

There was an intercepted message, and it was intercepted on my end, and that makes it my fault. So if anything should happen to her as a result of it…

_My fault… my fault… my fault…_

Merlin, it's replaced _let her be all right_ as my new mantra.

And _FUCK_ it's cold out here!

We've been meeting like this, in deserted locations all over Great Britain, for the better part of three years; I've been passing her information about the Death Eaters. I started after my mother's… accident. It wasn't a member of the Order that put her into this permanent catatonic state, see? It was one of the Death Eaters.

One of _us_.

It was an accident, sure – I can accept that it was an accident; I watched it happen, after all. Just a misfired spell in the midst of a rather heated scrimmage. Just a misfired spell, but still, her life _ended_ in that moment – in any meaningful sense, at least, it ended – and there should have been _some_ sort of consequence for the person responsible.

There never was, though. The person responsible was one of our most valuable combatants, and my mother hadn't been participating at all, not in the _fighting_; she was just there on the sidelines as always, quietly tending to the injured and the fallen.

Nothing. Not even a slap on the wrist, not even a harsh word. And no real show of remorse, either; _that's_ what really shocked me to the core. That's what rocked my world right down to its foundation. No, things more or less just went on as usual… except for my mother, of course.

And for me.

That day changed everything for me.

In a very real sense I lost _both _my parents that day. I haven't had much to say to my father since his misguided spell took my mother's sanity, after all. And what did _he_ have to say about it, to me, her only son? Just some trite, defensive _bollocks_ about how any great cause demands great sacrifice.

When I really understood that no action would be taken, that no apology was forthcoming, not even just a private one to _me_…

_That_ was when I sought out the Order.

It was Snape who smoothed the way for me, helped me edge in. But Granger…

Granger was the one appointed to be my contact, because she was the only one who agreed to put up with me.

So they said.

And so our clandestine meetings began.

Forests, moors, deserted stretches of rugged coastline, ancient Muggle ruins… we've seen it all.

I can't tell you just when I began to actually _live_ for these meetings… but it was over two years ago, anyway. And it wasn't long afterward that she began to prey on my mind even when there _was _no meeting scheduled for the immediate future.

I began to worry about her constantly; what was the Order up to now, and was she okay? Where was she, what was she doing, was she on some ugly assignment, was she in danger? We're all in danger all the time, of course – this is a war, after all. But it was – and it is – Granger who's been occupying my thoughts almost exclusively for… for quite some time now.

_Let her be all right. God… Merlin… whoever's listening… just let her be all right._

And then the dreams started. Why didn't I see the connection before? Of course I was reaching for her. I've _always_ been reaching for her.

Ever since that first rather awkward introduction to the Order, when she was the only one – the _only_ one – who reached out a hand to _me_.

Another shout is trying to sneak past me. I strangle it in my throat.

Our meetings have always been like this; no exact coordinates. Just a general location, an _area_… say, a half-mile radius. It takes longer to find each other this way, but it's meant to give us a fighting chance in case one of our messages should ever be intercepted.

That was the rationale, at any rate.

I suppose that today I'll find out if it's worked.

_-_-_-_

It's her hand I see first.

And oddly enough, it's always been her hands I've loved the most.

I noticed them even back in school… most notably that time third year when she slapped me hard in the face.

Her hands are so small… but _strong_. Take it from me, I learned that day.

They're quick too, and clever, and capable, and nearly always stained with ink.

And they're _kind_. I mean, yes, the first contact I ever had with them _was_ that slap back in school, but in retrospect I may even have deserved that. A little.

But the slap was more than compensated for, anyway, when she reached out to me the day I approached the Order. My mind was still reeling from my mother's incident and my subsequent decision to defect, and there I was standing in the midst of what was _clearly_ hostile territory – they were willing to hear me out, sure, but only because they were _desperate_ for information – otherwise any one of them would have been more than happy to hex me into oblivion right on the spot; it was written all over their faces.

All except for her. She listened carefully, and apparently without prejudice, and then she held out her hand.

I love those hands.

I love her hair, too. The same hair I used to mock and ridicule… I guess that just proves how much _I've_ changed, because _it _hasn't changed at all.

Remember what I said about snow blanketing all imperfections, imposing order on the landscape? Order _is_ perfection – that's what I was taught from a very early age. That's why I couldn't stand her hair in school; it was the perfect antithesis of everything I had been taught to value, to believe in.

Well, it was more than the hair – _she_ was the perfect antithesis of everything I had been taught to believe in. A Muggleborn witch – a _Mudblood_ – who wasn't dull and stupid and useless as I'd been told they were, but was brilliant, and spirited, and consistently outperformed the purebloods, myself included.

That was a hard pill to swallow for the little boy I was.

And that wild, dark, untamed hair was the physical embodiment of it all.

That hair is her trademark. Ask anyone to describe her, _anyone_ – whether friend _or_ foe – and you will unfailingly hear about that hair first.

How I hated it then… and how I love it now.

Her eyes too; _they_ are simply amazing. Of course, I never appreciated _that_ in school either. Brown; such a plain, _common_ color. Brown; appropriate for a _Mudblood_, my father would say.

My father, as it turns out, has been wrong about a lot of things. I wish I had seen it before. But no matter; I'm trying to make up for lost time now. Trying hard.

I'd never noticed before, before we began these weekly rendezvous, what a _warm_ color brown can be. So full of intelligence, so full of wit, so full of…

_Life_.

Bursting with life. That's how they'd always _been_. It just took me a while to notice, that's all.

And now I'm praying, praying with everything I've got, that the next time I see those eyes, they'll still be full of life.

I'm not usually a praying man, either. But we all make exceptions sometimes.

And to see those eyes any other way… it would be the death of me.

But I digress. It's her _hand_ I see first.


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N: Well, this is the final installment. Happy reading and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! And remember when you're done - reviews make _awesome_ Christmas presents. They're free!)

_-_-_-_

It's clutching the trunk of a tree.

Hm. Holding on for support… not great. But apparently she's on her feet, rather than on the ground – not terrible, either.

Still I don't call out. I increase my pace, though – I'm flat-out running now. When my boot comes down on that twig; slightly larger, thicker than most; it makes a sound like a whip-crack, like a bludger breaking a bone.

The retort echoes through the cold woods, and suddenly she's around the tree and facing me. She's bracing herself against the trunk but her wand arm is steady enough, steady and trained directly on my heart.

I skid to a stop some ten feet from her, throwing up my hands, palms outward, in a gesture of peace. "Granger," I say. I'm drinking her in with my eyes. No external signs of harm, other than the fact that she's leaning rather heavily on that tree.

Well, she's breathing hard, too – almost panting. But then again, so am I.

Her eyes narrow. "Malfoy?" she says distrustfully.

Oh bugger, I forgot. I'm wearing my bloody hood.

Moving slowly, I stash my wand in its holster with one hand while reaching for my hood with the other. I watch the relief flood her face as I yank it off.

Only now does she lower her wand.

"Malfoy," she says again, and this time it comes out almost as a sigh. "I thought you were… when you didn't… when _they_ came… I thought you were…"

I know exactly what she thought. I can read it in her face. She can't bring herself to say the word, though… the same word I couldn't bring myself to even _think_ about her.

"I'm fine," I say. "There was an interception, but I'm fine." I realize distantly, distractedly, that my hair, freed from the confines of the hood, has fallen across my eyes. I raise a hand to shove it back.

That's when her legs fail her and she starts to slide down the trunk of the tree toward the ground.

"_Granger!"_

I cross the last of the distance between us in time to catch her, hauling her back to her feet.

She's a warm, solid weight in my arms – I love the feel of her there. I'm worried now, though; all my relief of a moment before washed away in a rising tide of concern.

"Granger, what's wrong? How are you hurt?"

Her hands are on my shoulders now, gripping me. She speaks into my chest. "I'm okay," she says, and I can feel her steadying herself in my arms. She feels so _right_ pressed against me. "I am, really. I'm just… just shaken, that's all. They came at me so fast, it… it was a bit of a shock."

"Who, Granger? Who came at you?"

"Over there." She gestures vaguely to the left. I look past her shoulder and see them; Avery and Nott, sprawled unconscious on the ground. She has bound their hands and removed their hoods. I don't have to check them to know that they're stunned, but alive. Granger doesn't kill.

Two against one, and the element of surprise on their side… and still she took them both down without getting so much as a scratch on her.

Merlin, what a woman.

She's speaking again. " – Patronus with my coordinates to the Order. Someone should be here any minute to help bring these two in. You should get out of here, Malfoy. If either of them – " she gestures again toward the two prone figures – "were to wake and see you – "

I cut her off.

"It's too late for that, Granger. I was compromised the moment that owl was intercepted; I can't go back. I'm done with this double-agent shit – I'm sick to death of it anyway. From here on out, I'm with you."

Her eyes widen, and she opens her mouth to speak – then the unmistakable sound of multiple Apparitions cracks the air and a second later I find myself staring over her shoulder at two more hooded figures who have just arrived.

They are definitely not Order members.

In fact, hoods or no hoods, I know exactly who I am looking at; one can usually tell family. It's my father and Aunt Bell.

Apparently Granger was not the only one who managed to fire off an S.O.S.

Fuck _me_.

That's all I have time to think. Then the first spell's coming at us; a wicked looking jet of light in a violent shade of puce, courtesy of my mad bitch aunt.

I just have time to register my father shouting "_NO –! _" and shoving Aunt Bell to the side… so he's actually trying to _protect_ me? How unexpectedly noble.

Or, if you prefer to look at it from my aunt's perspective, how intolerably weak.

Of course, I doubt his concern is as much about me personally as it is about the continuation of the Malfoy name and bloodline; I am the only heir, after all…

I don't really have time to process such trivialities at the moment, though. The spell is coming and I'm already moving, launching myself sideways and taking Granger with me; turning us a hundred and eighty degrees in the air at the same time, making it so _I'm_ the one between her and our attackers, rather than the other way around.

The spell slams into me from behind as we fall together. Aunt Bell's always _had_ a knack for hitting people in the back.

The pain that rips through me is immense – breathtaking. And it only gets worse when I impact the ground. I have no idea what she threw at me, but it was a _bastard_, whatever it was.

I've barely landed when I'm trying to push myself up again – I still have to protect Granger, by God – but I'm having a considerable amount of difficulty just now. Part of it is that she's lying on top of me, but most of it is that my limbs don't seem to want to obey me anymore.

Well, that's just great.

My father and my aunt are grappling with each other now, and Granger's scrambling to _her_ feet; I manage to get up onto my elbows and then the air is rent by yet more Apparitions, sounds like half a dozen this time at least.

Everything's becoming rather blurry now, but I can make out the unmistakable red of Weasley's hair and _hear_ the unmistakable self-importance of Potter's voice, and then everything disintegrates into a bonafide melee. Seems father and Aunt Bell have banded together again in the face of adversity and now spells are flying _every_ which way.

Me, I fall back, and gray out.

_-_-_-_

I'm not actually losing consciousness, let's get that right out in the clear. That would be perilously close to fainting, and Malfoys don't faint.

I grit my teeth. I wont, I won't, I _won't_.

Whatever is happening here, wherever this is _going_… I'm holding on to my consciousness to the last bitter end.

The chaos of wizarding combat ebbs and flows around me for a while – one minute? Five, ten? I'm not sure… and then Granger's back, apparently having realized that I did not, in fact, jump up right behind her as she doubtless expected me to.

"Malfoy? _Malfoy!_" I can see her lips forming my name. I can hear her too, but only distantly now. There's a rushing in my ears, like wind. She turns her head, shouts to her friends. Something about healers.

My father is shouting too, furiously in the background – "Draco!? _DRACO!_ Let me see my _son!_" I suppose that means they've restrained him now. It's really not important, though; not anymore.

What's important is that her hair is brushing my face; it's as soft as I've always imagined it would be. Smells nice, too. And is she – ? Merlin, she _is_… she's actually _straddling_ me, one knee on either side of my hips and oh my _God_, I have _fantasized _about this moment.

I just never factored in the whole dying part.

I want nothing more than to reach up and pull her down for a kiss, but unfortunately that would require the use of my arms.

A second later, though, her hair whispers away as she turns toward me again. She's leaning down so close now that we're almost nose to nose. I can see snowflakes caught in her eyelashes. I _knew_ I was racing the snow. But that's all right. I reached her first.

I won.

"Malfoy, stay with me, help is coming. Hold on. Malfoy, are you hearing me!? Don't you _dare _close your eyes. You have to stay with me now, _please!_"

What an odd thing to say. My eyes aren't closing… _are_ they?

She's so close. I'm cold and getting colder with every passing second, but where _she's_ pressed against me, at least, there's warmth.

There's life.

I can feel her heart thudding in her chest, going so hard and fast it's as if it's trying to beat for the both of us.

The thought brings a smile to my lips.

Things are fading quickly now; she's still shouting at me, but I can't hear her anymore. There is some sort of a… a _gulf_ that is trying to open between us.

_-_-_-_

I've dreamed this forest.

And now I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've heard somewhere that recurring dreams are widely considered to be harbingers of death.

I don't know if that's true. For that matter, I don't know that I'm dying, not with any certainty. The world around me _is_ changing, though; it's losing its vibrancy, its immediacy. It's almost as if – how can I explain this? – as if reality is splitting at the seams, and all the sound and color are leaking out. Which is… worrisome.

But I'm all right as long as Granger stays with me. This is it – we're together now. Done with all that double-agent shit, that's what I told her; sick to death of it anyhow.

I'm right where I want to be.

I'm with _her_.

And here's something I _do_ know for a fact; the color of her eyes, hovering so close above me? That's not changing. They're as brown as ever, and as _warm_.

Her eyes – the warmth in them – it doesn't matter that the first snow of the season is falling all around us. To me those eyes look like Spring.

And her hands, one of which is loosely tangled in my hair, the other pressed against my cheek… they're solid too. The reality of _them_ is not fading.

Not yet.

Her hands feel… they feel like…

Like coming home.

It was her hand I saw first.

Merlin, I love those hands.

_-_-_-_

**END**


End file.
